Missing persons
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has taken notice of the disappearances in Balochistan with a report based on over 100 interviews it in Balochistan in 2010 and 2011 of family members of ‘disappeared’ people, former detainees, local human rights activists, lawyers and witnesses to government abductions.
The report may not have added anything to what had been disclosed to the Supreme Court in the report by its commission, but it was certainly a confirmation of the report, which shows a peculiar state in the province. The recent federal cabinet meeting in Quetta and the earlier announcement of the Aghaz-i-Huqooq-i-Balochistan package do not mean that the unrest in the province has been contained.
It is important that the more pressing grievances of the Baloch cannot be ignored, their right to security of person, and ensuring the rule of law, which requires that anyone detained be treated in a certain manner and not be made to disappear off the face of the earth.
The most worrying aspect of the disappearances, which came up before the Supreme Court, has been noted by the HRW too, i.e. the court intervention has not stopped the disappearances, which are still continuing. This shows the kind of protection enjoyed by carrying out the disappearances, and shows that the government’s defiance of the SC is spilling over to departments other than those which have been summoned by the court. The Human Right Watch Asia Director has named the security forces as responsible for the disappearances, which makes the government still responsible.
The government has not considered how this activity has been on the upswing since Afghanistan granted Indian consulates just opposite Balochistan. The unrest in the province may be caused by activities of the US contractor Xe, the successor of the notorious Blackwater, or the US administration itself as it tries to destabilise Iran, or by RAW.
The denial of military involvement by the local commander will gain credence only if the abductions stop, and the detained persons come back to their loved ones, and the disappearances case before the Supreme Court is restricted only to those missing illegally in the war on terror. That the disappeared include Baloch will not give all the people of that province the sense of security they need to be truly part of the federation.
Source: The Nation
Date:7/30/2011
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